Abstract
Untreated or inappropriately treated, calcaneal fractures can result in
arthritis, chronic ankle pain, and ankle
deformity which can significantly impact the lifestyle of affected patients. Even though calcaneal fractures are
common among those with multiple injuries, they can easily be missed, and not treating them would sign
ificantly
impact on the patient negatively. It is therefore important a high index of suspicion is made for this injury among
patients involved in high
-
energy trauma.
Case Presentation
This article is a retrospective recall of the six patients seen with ca
lcaneal fractures that were treated in our hospital
between 2010 and 2018, they were mainly multiply injured and the advanced trauma life support (ATLS) protocol
helped to delineate these fractures, the use of modern
-
day operative and non
-
operative methods
of management
and rehabilitation were employed.
Discussion
and conclusion
Calcaneal fractures are mostly associated with high
-
energy trauma which includes falls from heights or vehicle
accidents with almost 50% soft tissue involvement. This is similar to
cases presented in this paper as all the
patients were either involved in road traffic accidents or had fallen from a height, however, soft tissue destruction
manifesting as open fractures were absent in our series.
Calcaneal fractures are rare and can eas
ily be missed as
patients may present as multiply injured. Prompt and adequate Rehabilitation is important to improve function
